chumicro-wifi

Wifi that auto-reconnects so your app code doesn't have to.

One WiFi service across CircuitPython (Adafruit boards) and MicroPython on both ESP32 and Pi Pico W. Owns the radio (no CIRCUITPY_WIFI_* settings, no firmware-level auto-reconnect competing with you), surfaces state transitions as events you can wire into the rest of your app via chumicro-runner, and reads its config section via chumicro-config. CircuitPython's substrate-level connect() is blocking. See Platform support for what that means in practice.

Part of the ChuMicro family: small, focused Python libraries for microcontrollers and laptops. Browse all libraries.

Install

# CircuitPython (after `circup bundle-add ChuMicro/ChuMicro-Bundle-Experimental`)
circup install chumicro_wifi

# MicroPython
mpremote mip install github:ChuMicro/ChuMicro-Bundle-Experimental/chumicro_wifi

# CPython
pip install chumicro-wifi-experimental

For bundle setup, pre-compiled .mpy bundles, the experimental channel, and details on PyPI naming, see the chumicro INSTALL guide.

Quick example

User-app pattern (the 4-line bring-up):

from chumicro_config import load_runtime_config
from chumicro_runner import Runner
from chumicro_wifi import WifiService

config = load_runtime_config()
runner = Runner()
wifi = WifiService.from_config(config)
runner.add(wifi)

State + IP introspection any time:

wifi.state          # "disconnected" | "connecting" | "connected" | "reconnecting" | "failed"
wifi.connected
wifi.ip
wifi.last_error
wifi.on_state_change(lambda old, new: print(f"{old} -> {new}"))

What's included

Where this fits

Depends on chumicro-config for its config section and registers with chumicro-runner for its tick contract. Provides the radio the networking layers sit on top of: chumicro-sockets on CircuitPython, with the HTTP / MQTT / WebSocket / NTP libraries downstream of that.

Platform support

Works on CPython, MicroPython, and CircuitPython. Ships three runtime adapters: CircuitPython wifi.radio (_adapters/cp.py), MicroPython network.WLAN covering both ESP-IDF (ESP32 family) and CYW43 (Pi Pico W) stacks (_adapters/mp.py), and a CPython host stand-in that reports success immediately (_adapters/cpython.py); chumicro_wifi.testing.FakeWifiAdapter covers host-side tests. The right adapter is selected at runtime via sys.implementation.name; the MP adapter then auto-detects ESP-IDF vs CYW43 by matching sys.implementation._machine against a positive whitelist of known CYW43 boards.

CircuitPython connect is blocking (read this if you're shipping to CP)

CircuitPython's substrate-level wifi.radio.connect() is blocking. There is no non-blocking variant exposed by the firmware. While WifiService is CONNECTING or RECONNECTING on a CircuitPython board, handle() stalls for up to connect_timeout_ms (default 15 000 ms). Other services in the same Runner (your LED heartbeat, an HTTP request, an MQTT keep-alive) pause for that window. Once the state reaches CONNECTED, the loop runs at full speed again and stays there until the link drops.

MicroPython's wlan.connect() is genuinely non-blocking on both ESP32 and Pi Pico W substrates: association happens in the background and handle() returns immediately. If non-blocking connect is load-bearing for your app, prefer MicroPython on RP2040 / RP2350 or ESP32-family boards.

Examples

Wiring wifi credentials

The library never reads TOML itself: it takes a WifiConfig and connects. WifiService.from_config(config) is the construction path the standard pipeline uses, reading credentials from your project's runtime config under the wifi.* keys (wifi.ssid, wifi.password) through the same WifiConfig.from_config(config) loader that also works standalone. To get those credentials onto the device, deploy them as part of a workspace-based deploy or a raw single-file deploy. The bundled connect_to_ap.py example and the on-device acceptance test both read the credentials this way and skip silently when none are configured.

Contributing

Issues, bug reports, and pull requests are welcome, and so is "I ran it on this board and here's what happened", some of the most useful feedback a hardware project can get. Development happens in the ChuMicro repository, whose contributing guide covers setup and the test workflow.

Docs

📖 Stable docs · Experimental docs

Find this library

• PyPI: chumicro-wifi
• Bundle: ChuMicro-Bundle (CircuitPython & MicroPython)
• Experimental bundle: ChuMicro-Bundle-Experimental
• Source: libraries/wifi

License

MIT